I appreciate a story where the central character is a tortured artist - here Sophie Stark is a tortured but extremely gifted filmmaker. I have known tortured artists in my life (some more prolific in their art than others) and I fundamentally understand how adversity breeds creativity. Such tortured souls can also be moody, unpredictable, and often unlikeable. Simultaneously, their magnetism draws people into their circles like moths to a flame.

Late in the book, a boyfriend of one of those moths warns that: "Sophie's heading for something bad, and if you're the one that's with her, that's going to be on you." It doesn't play out exactly that way, but the warning about Sophie is spot on. I try not to judge a book by the likability of its main character. I did not like Sophie. I did not really feel any empathy for Sophie, and I did not at any point put Sophie on a pedestal. I did, however, like the author's treatment and approach and writing. This book hooked me and I looked forward to sitting down with it and its characters each time I read. Anna North may or may not be a tortured artist herself, but she definitely gets the internal conflict and the difficulty of these personalities and the often tragic results when you are a moth drawn to their flame.

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